Due to the high demand from Glendon students wanting to attend this event, we have decided to open a new lot of thirty tickets at a special Glendon student discount price of $15ea (instead of $25 for non-Glendon students).

This includes breakfast, a full lunch Ó la mexicaine accompanied by live entertainment, and the panels for the day. There is an additional $5 entrance fee to a formal reception in the Manor following the closing of the symposium.

Among this February’s “must attend” events is Glendon’s 11th Annual International Studies Symposium, Across Borders: Diverse Perspectives on Mexico. Held in English at Glendon on Saturday, February 11th, this international conference presents panellists from across the continent and Europe.

"Mexico is a country that has been familiar in the Canadian vocabulary for many years, especially with the developments of NAFTA,” explains organizing-committee member Karen Murray, “yet the Mexican culture is both compelling and fairly unknown to us, northerners.”

The most heavily-populated Spanish-speaking country in the world, Mexico occupies a unique space between English-speaking North America and Spanish-speaking Latin America. Mexican social movements and political change impact both continents in very different ways. The panels at the conference aim to explore these relationships, while strengthening Mexico-Canada relations and promoting a broader understanding of the diversity of the Mexican nation. Panels will cover such topics as Mexico – Canada relations, Mexico and NAFTA, cultural politics, democratization, gender issues and rural development.

Mexico is of particular interest this year, with its upcoming elections this July. Last term’s elections, in 2000, saw the defeat of a party consecutively in power for over 70 years. This year’s election is promising to be very plural in nature and the outcome will reveal the country’s move towards further democratization.

The Mexico Symposium is one of a long line of conferences which have become a notable event for Glendon and York. Past conferences have featured Cuba, China, South Africa, the Middle East, the European Union, South-East Asia, Brazil, Russia, India, and the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Future conferences on Turkey and Central Asia are under consideration.

“This is an annual event which is completely organized and fundraised by a committee of devoted undergraduate students each year - a primary key to its success,” notes Karen Campbell, this year’s project coordinator. “It is the committee’s sincere hope to welcome students and professors representing many of the faculties at York to our symposium.”

In addition to mounting the symposium, the project traditionally also includes a fall-term seminar on the chosen region, a research field study on location by the participating students for their dissertations and, finally, the eventual publication of the conference proceedings.

For information on registration for the Symposium and the latest on the different panels, visit www.MexicoSymposium.org. This day-long event will also include a light breakfast, and a full lunch of various Mexican dishes accompanied by entertainment.This article was submitted by Glendon student Michael Thayer, responsible for the Mexico Symposium’s media and public relations activities and Glendon communications officer Marika Kemeny.